Private Company Edition: Newpath Partners’ second fund totals $350m, Merck KGaA committed €600m to M Ventures, Eir Ventures raised €122.3m and Breakout Ventures has $112.5m. Recent financings were led by SOTIO ($317.5m), Odyssey ($218m), Avistone ($200m) and Acepodia ($109m).

While it wants to keep other programs for diseases with larger patient populations in house, MeiraGTx believes J&J offers the global reach to expedite its program in inherited retinal diseases, including three clinical candidates.

Once expected to be absorbed by Sanofi, US biotech Warp Drive Bio now will become part of California’s Revolution Medicines in a stock transaction. Sosei elects against its option to acquire MiNA Therapeutics; MeiraGTX follows its June IPO with takeout of Vector Neurosciences. Other recent mergers and acquisitions... 

Moderna and Intarcia lead recent fundraisings; big pharma backing includes Novartis leading Series A for Inflazome and Pfizer for diabetes play Antolrx. Derived from Strategic Transactions, Informa’s premium source for tracking life sciences deal activity, the Venture Funding Deals column provides a comprehensive monthly review of emerging biopharmaceutical companies that have received venture funding. This month’s column covers deals announced August through September 2016.